A necessary evil in the face of English economic supremacy?

“Are you not entertained? “. On the networks, quoting the mythical phrase from Russell Crowe’s Maximus has become a habit when it comes to praising the pleasures offered by the Premier League. We saw it a lot on Twitter after the slap inflicted by Liverpool on Manchester United (7-0), and the answer to the question is quite obvious. Yes, the English championship fascinates with its density at the highest level and its intensity. In a world where national championships are finding it increasingly difficult to exist, he is the last Mohican. Unless he has risen to a higher rank, and no longer has anything in common with his Spanish, German, Italian and French peers? *

“Only the Premier League is growing, and growing, and is already a glorified Super League,” Andrea Agnelli told De Telegraaf. “It’s a system where a plane took off, the Premier League, and the rest is completely forgotten”, abounds an executive of the promoter company of the Super League, to 20 minutes. Meaning: we must quickly oppose a European Super League under penalty of seeing everyone get eaten.

Why is this pose amazing?

Because this is one of the great novelties of the recent offensive of the rival project in the Champions League. The Premier League, however represented by six of its members in the abortive putsch of 2021, is now marginalized there. The threat of a “white paper” brandished by an independent regulator as part of a “new deal” for English football, which should include a ban on all participation in a closed league, could explain the Super League taking its distances with the PL. If the consulting firm in the shadow of Pérez, Agnelli and Laporta pretends not to feel concerned by “this populist measure” since “the Super League will not be closed”, it does not exclude that the rocket takes off without the English clubs if they find themselves trapped by British government interventionism. “If 80 non-English clubs get on the Super League train tomorrow, I won’t be able to say, ‘sorry, the English aren’t there, we’re not going to do it'”, we concede at A22.

Does the “Super” Premier League threaten sporting fairness?

With 920 million euros invested, or 48% of European spending during the winter window of the transfer window, English clubs have shamelessly stripped European formations that could have shaken up the continental hierarchy in the year 2023 (RIP Enzo Fernandez, small angel who left Benfica too soon). And nourished the storytelling of the Super League. The firm Deloitte thus notes in a report that the amounts put on the table are “a clear indication that the acquisition of talent is at the heart of the commercial strategies of Premier League clubs. By securing the best talent available, clubs hope to improve results on the pitch, which will boost the Premier League’s appeal and further cement its position at the top of world football. »

One of the soap operas at the end of the transfer window particularly marked the followers. That of the Italian Zaniolo, coveted by AC Milan and Bournemouth. The ex-Roman – who ended up at Galatasaray – certainly did not choose either club, but the fact that the best offer was made by the last of the English championship had particularly caught the attention. The Super League, one of whose new principles would reside in the fair redistribution of an immense financial windfall within a semi-closed circuit of 60 to 80 teams, looks at all this with envy.

They have done a great job of selling the competition internationally. When the international rights of the L1 are not even 200 million euros, those of the Premier League will be nearly 2 billion euros. So they collect this money and even distribute it to the 2nd division. The result is that the English championship has 8 major clubs and therefore at least one big poster per weekend. Our position at A22 is that this is an example to follow. »

Is the emergence of a second European Super League the only alternative to the PL?

The compilation of all the current economic dynamics leads to fatalism. National sovereignties are crumbling (“we are hiding the problem with an early sale of rights like the CVC case in France or Spain”, alert the promoters of the Super League project)… For the sports economist and director researcher at the CNRS, Luc Arrondel, the closed league is “the most natural next step in evolution”. Pierre Rondeau, also an economist, developed the mechanism. “The meritocratic laissez-faire inevitably tends to this perverse effect of creating the Super League. If we maintain the idea of ​​rewarding the best and blaming the last, we maintain their positions and create economic monsters who want to free themselves from national supremacy to live their own lives. »

William Martucci, a former consultant for UEFA in charge of the development of club competitions, refuses the Super League as the only alternative. “I think it would be more relevant to try to fix the current model by keeping it and trying to see how to redistribute the money generated by the Premier League. This is an idea that may seem disturbing: after all, why should we help others? This fundamental question constitutes the main blocking point of the English-style New Deal, even if the Premier League, reluctant to the idea of ​​the existence of a regulator, will have to look into the question under pressure from the Premier League. Minister Rishi Sunak. A redistribution of wage surpluses to lower levels is mentioned, as well as money invested in infrastructure rather than in the wage bill.

There are actually quite a few solutions to try to reduce the inequalities within European football, which should be the first objective, continues Martucci. If we reduce the inequalities, we can solve almost all the real problems denounced by all the supporters of the Super League. They don’t want to explore these avenues, because they make us believe that the only solution to save football is to change the system and go through a Super League. »

Thinking of a European-style New Deal could therefore make it possible to rebalance the game a little, and restore interest in the other national championships. Yelling “are you not entertained? “After a Lille-Lens of madness, we dream of it, too.


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